Government avails $15 million for innovation hubs, universities infrastructural upgrade

GOVERNMENT has availed $15 million for the construction of innovation hubs in six universities and infrastructural overhaul of the Higher and Tertiary Education sector, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister, Professor Amon Murwira has said.

In an interview, at the launch of Science and Mathematics Secondary Teachers’ Training Programme held at Mkoba Teachers’ College on Wednesday, Prof Murwira said Government had availed $15 million for the project.

He said it had partnered with the private sector which was expected to inject more capital.

“So far we have been allocated about $ 15 million which we are using at this moment. However we are partnering with the private sector for that project and more can come. On our own as Government we have raised $ 15 million but there is more coming. We are building innovation hubs at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), Midlands State University (MSU), University of Zimbabwe, (UZ) Harare Institute of Technology (HIT), Zimbabwe Defence University and Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT).

“But more is coming because we have partnered the private sector which will assist us in building the innovation hubs. We are looking at a higher and tertiary education sector that is a multibillion industry. We are doing this through making sure that we have done infrastructural overhaul in all our institutions.”

Prof Murwira said the Government has embarked on extensive infrastructural review in colleges and Universities.

“We are doing extensive infrastructure review through Private Public Sector partnership through investment. Very soon we will be announcing progress in terms of the infrastructure we are building,” he said.

Prof Murwira said Government will also build industrial parks in all cities and towns across the country for research purposes.

“We are expecting ideas to be incubated that would then lead to prototypes. But we said if the prototypes are there so what. So we were given the green light by cabinet to create industrial parks in every local authority. Local authorities have been instructed to give us land so that where we will build industrial shelves for the products that come from innovation hubs. This is a new way of thinking that has been brought into the higher and tertiary education sector,” he said.